22-year-old Manon was one of 150 people in France who reported that were stabbed with syringes during the “Fête de la Musique” (“Music Festival”), which took place in the streets of France over the weekend.

According to CNN, it was around 1:30 a.m., when the crowd had thinned from the streets of Bordeaux, and Manon felt the sting of a needle in her arm.

“Someone had stabbed my left arm. I started to feel numbness in the muscle, like when you get a vaccine. After about 30 minutes, the injection mark appeared,” he told the American media outlet.

Although she didn’t know what the injection had been given – or who had given it to her and why – she remained calm.

The Interior Ministry, did not specify whether the needle attacks, which took place across the country and appear to have involved multiple perpetrators, were cases of drug use used in sexual assaults, such as Rohypnol or GHB.

After spending three hours from 4 to 7 a.m. Sunday morning in the emergency room, Manon shared a video of her experience on TikTok, which quickly went viral.

“It was important for me to raise awareness because I hadn’t seen testimonials from people who had been injected,” said Manon, who kept her last name confidential for security reasons.

“We were told on social media to be careful, but I think people want to know more – how it happens, the symptoms, how it progresses. It was reassuring to talk about it because at the time I was completely alone,” the young woman said.

After returning home from the hospital, Manon filed a police report. “It’s important because if we are too relaxed, if we say ‘oh, others will make complaints’, nothing ever changes. I told myself that maybe it can have an impact.”

Since Saturday, police have made 14 arrests across the country. They are men aged between 19 and 44, including both French citizens and foreign nationals, police spokeswoman Agathe Foucault told Radio France on Tuesday – but no arrests have been made in connection with the needle sticks.

“The police have not identified any perpetrator behind the injections, but the incidents are confirmed,” Justice Minister Geral Darmanin told BFMTV on Tuesday.

“We are implementing a criminal policy to prosecute those responsible on social media for these very unhealthy infusion games targeting women,” Darmanin said.

Feminist influencer Abrège Soeur, who before the festival warned that men on social media were planning such attacks, told CNN that “the goal of the perpetrators is not only to drug women, but to instill fear in them.”

“When people start saying there are going to be needle attacks, it spreads in the form of rumour – some people bring it up in group discussions, others pick it up, it just gets amplified,” he said, adding: “We need to help women feel safer.”
Soeur said.

Mannon, who has to wait three weeks for her toxicology test results to come back, said that although she hasn’t been sleeping well lately, she’s not going to give up.

“Fête de la Musique is meant to be a time of good mood, music, dancing, fun. Someone wanted to destroy this moment, to kill that spirit. I told myself that I would not let it defeat me.
I don’t want to be sad or angry. I don’t want to let them win.”